RE: [Philmont]: Crew Leader Selection

Wow, good timing for this topic as I have been pondering doing exactly that,
having a rotating crew leader. I thought with my situation that was the way
to go but after reading these posts I can see the majority opinion differs.
Please offer some solutions or suggestions to my situation.

We have a provisional crew of 8 boys, (& 3 advisors) that come from all over
the country, literally. 1 from Wisconsin, 1 from Texas, the other 6 are from
Alabama, my home state, but cover the entire northern part of the state.
These six scouts come from 3 other troops, or 2 scouts from each troop. 2 of
these scouts are from my troop (and one of the other advisors as well) and
are the only ones I know or possibly will meet before we meet at Philmont.

Because we are from different areas of the state, scheduling any weekend
training activity that we all could attend has been difficult, if not
impossible. That and a whole host of other conflicts will prevent us from
doing much training as a group, if any at all. In fact the only time there
is a good chance of all the "in state" scouts / advisors getting together
is our last pack shakedown held on Tuesday night two weeks before we leave
for Philmont.

I am the only one of our crew who has been to Philmont; twice as an advisor.
Both times we were a crew made up of scouts from 2 different troops, but
troops in the same district who already knew each other. Both times it was
obvious to all who the crew leader should be and in fact wound up being.
This time I don't have that luxury. I have a scout in mind who would make
an excellent crew leader, IMHO, but I will not push that opinion on the
crew. Or at least don't want to. I believe without a doubt that if the rest
of the crew knew him that they would feel the same way. He is an Eagle
Scout and actually is the oldest scout in the crew. But that's the problem,
they don't and won't until we hit base camp on June 16th.

I've had another leader, a Philmont veteran, advise me to rotate the crew
leader and then after day 8(since we have 8 boys), let the crew select the
one who has done the best job for the remainder of the trek. I know this
plan has it's problems but seemed like a solution to me. That way when we
return home, each scout can truthfully say, "I was a crew leader of 616G2."
Of course there may be some of the guys who don't want the responsibility
and that's OK. I have mailed each scout a copy of the Crew Leader
Orientation sheet that came with our package so they would know what the job
required.

My idea was to start with "my choice" as crew leader and use the other scout
from my troop as assistant crew leader. In other words, I start with a
"known quality". The assistant crew leader would rotate to crew leader the
next day and have a rotation worked out on the duty roster so that another
scout would rotate to assistant crew leader. This way each scout who wanted
to do so, had an opportunity to be both crew leader and assistant crew
leader. The last day of rotation the first crew leader would be the
assistant crew leader. Then hold an election to see who will lead us on to
base camp the remaining part of our trek. It will take some planning. It
may take more advisor involvement up front or behind the scenes than normal
but after we got to Philmont, the scouts would take over and adjust the plan
as needed.

So, please let me hear what you would do in my situation or about my plan.

Thanks for your time, sorry for the long post!

Wayne White

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Received on Wed Apr 9 02:58:07 2003